He doesn’t ask.
But he leans into the trunk and grabs a box. The trunk is filled with boxes, most of them open. I got them from my garage earlier—it’s all the stuff I never unpacked because I couldn’t stand being in that fucking house. But there’s also a big one, an old UPS box I’d scrounged from the recycling bin at school, and it’s filling most of the trunk. That’s the one Micah takes. He has his feet planted and shoulders square, but it’s a lot lighter than he thinks. He flies back with the box, and I almost laugh. This is better. This is Micah, just a little bit off-balance and always embarrassed. My Micah.
Me and you, I think as I walk toward what’s left of the Metaphor. It doesn’t matter. It won’t after tonight. You and me.
That’s all that matters, in the end.
We carry boxes back and forth, stacking them higher and higher beside the Metaphor. Once they’re all there, we start ripping them apart and pulling out the papers: notes Ander and I passed back and forth, from seventh grade all the way to this year. The rest of the fairy tale bullshit and all of the books. And other stuff too, stuff I just don’t want anymore. Old notebooks and loose papers, binders of bio notes with margins full of doodles and Skarpie bleeding through.
“God, I’m an actual hoarder,” I say, dumping a box of coloring books onto the ground.
“Janie,” Micah says.
He’s on his knees, digging through the mess. I think about stopping him, but he should know. No more secrets between us, no more lies.
“Janie,” he says again, and his face is slack with disbelief. “These are your journals.”
I roll my eyes. “I know. I put them in your car, Micah. Duh.”
“But these . . . Janie, these are your journals.”
He flips through Journal Ten, which was back when I was still in my sketchbook journal phase. I see the ink, watercolor, so many sketches. I did a drawing a day for months and months. There must be a hundred Metaphors in there.
“You can’t do this,” he says. He shoves his hands into his armpits to keep warm, and I step closer and tug them out and press them between mine. Not that my hands are warm either, but at least now we’re shivering together.
“You can’t, all of your plans are in here. You want to do all of that shit, draw and go to Nepal and write about it in your journals and—”
“I’m not burning Journal Twelve.” Yet. And I’m not going to Nepal, either. I never was. Micah was right—I would have wished and wanted but I would have been too scared to do anything. Just like everybody else. Everyone says they want to travel and leave home and find themselves or whatever, but they never do it. That’s what high school’s for. You make plans and you don’t follow through. You dream and you can be brave when you’re dreaming, brave enough to imagine that there’s actually a yourself to find, brave enough to finish projects even though you were never born with endings, brave enough to plan volunteer trips even though you’d probably be dead of asphyxiation by the time you’re there because you’re always holding your breath as if that can keep you together. Please. I’m in so many pieces that there’s nothing left to hold. The plane ticket doesn’t change that. I’m still terrified. Maybe Micah can get a refund.
“But the rest of these. What was the point? You always wanted to look at them later. You wanted to look back through them one day, you wanted to remember all of the shit we did, that we’re going to do. You wrote it all down, you can’t just get rid of it, or what’s the point?”
“Oh, Micah.” My hands are clenched tight around his. Our hands are actually sweating now, or it might just be mine. “There was never a point. Don’t you see?”
I drop his hands, reach into my pocket, light a match.
I drop the match and watch as it falls from my fingers.
Watch as the starving flame yearns back toward my fingertips just a little as it falls.
And falls.
All that paper sure burns awfully fast.
It burns and burns and burns.
I watch for a while before I open the last box. The big one. No, that’s not true. I don’t open it, I tear it apart. I use fingers and feet and teeth and I destroy it, rip the sides out and throw them into the water. The fire is at my back and spreading into my bloodstream—I am furious. I am rabid.
When it’s sufficiently mauled, I step back.
Behind me, Micah inhales—a sharp sound that I swear makes the fire lean toward him.
“What?” I say. “I had to. I couldn’t get them into the box.”
His hands are up, eyes wide. “Janie. Janie, stop. You can’t do this.”
“Watch me,” I say. He reaches for my shoulders to hold me back, and I flinch away, and snarl, “Get the fuck off me, Micah.”
His hands drop away like I have turned to fire. I wish, but alas.
“But you were going to finish them,” he says. His eyes are too big for his head. “Janie, they—they’re beautiful. Just . . . come on, Janie. Don’t do this. You can finish them, I know you can.”